Wednesday, December 28, 2016

We spent the past week in New Orleans, with (most) of my family, celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah combined. My oldest brother and SIL were only in town briefly, since she had to work Christmas; but we did see them the first night we were in town.

Now we are back in the Fort, and all of us are sick -- fever, sore throat, fierce headache. Since we always get sick for the holidays (being academics) this is NBD.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

In 1935, with Hitler gaining power in Europe, and
fascism rising up in various political groups all over the world -- including
in America -- the common wisdom said nothing like Hitler could EVER happen in
America. Sinclair Lewis's alternative history / SF novel is a scary vision of
just how easily it can happen here.

Friday, December 09, 2016

...what struck me as especially notable about the new
survey results is the persistence of the so-called “reality gap.”
* Unemployment: Under President Obama, job growth has been quite strong,
and the unemployment rate has improved dramatically. PPP, however, found that
67% of Trump voters believe the unemployment rate went up under Obama – which
is the exact opposite of reality...* Popular Vote: As of this morning, Hillary Clinton received roughly 2.7
million more votes than Donald Trump, but PPP nevertheless found that 40% of
Trump voters believe he won the popular vote – which is, once again, the exact
opposite of reality.
* Voter Fraud: Even Trump’s lawyers concede there was no voter fraud in
the presidential election, but PPP found that 60% of Trump voters apparently
believe “millions” of illegal ballots were cast for Clinton in 2016 – which
isn’t even close to resembling reality.

As Benen notes, when a sizable percentage of our country is invested in believing -- for whatever reason -- what is transparently a lie, it's hard to know how we're going to move forward.

Thursday, December 08, 2016

Colbert acknowledges at the top that he's not a journalist. Nevertheless, he's doing stellar work here.

I'm still seeing Far-Right blogs claiming that this Pizzagate drivel is true, by the way. Seriously, how intellectually limited do you have to be to buy into something this transparently ridiculous? It's like believing in chemtrails. Or that ridiculous claim that Planned Parenthood sells fetal body parts -- Rod Dreher is still repeating that vile lie.

Really, they're daily more pathetic. You would think, now that they've got their Liar in Chief headed for the White House, they'd calm down. But nope. They're ramping up the Bullshit Machines: Full Speed Ahead.

I am grading, and also moving my office from one building, on the northeast side of our campus, to another (slightly newer) building on the northwest(ish) side of our campus.

Though the buildings are no more than a few hundred yards apart (maybe three hundred? I'm terrible at judging distances), still I have heaps of books* and files (ten large boxes), and can't really move myself.

I am at the mercy of our grounds crew, and they are at the mercy of whoever is in charge of assigning their workload, I assume. In any case, though I was supposed to be moved today, yeah, not so much.

Could I come in tomorrow (and wait all day, I suppose, for the grounds crew to cancel on me again), I was asked.

Yeah, not so much.

I counter-proposed that they come move me on Tuesday, when I'll be on campus anyway, giving my last exam. I am waiting to hear whether this will be acceptable.

Meanwhile, I have stacks and stacks of essays, final exams, and papers to grade, as well as grade totals to figure once that is done.

See you on the other side.

*This does not count all the books I weeded out and dumped on our Free Book table, which students happily carried off for me, or the old files I dumped in our recycling bin.

Wednesday, December 07, 2016

This year, we're driving down to New Orleans to stay with my parents for the holidays. Christmas and Hanukkah coincide this year, interestingly -- or at least the first day of Hanukkah coincides with Christmas. I'll be hauling bags of presents with us, is what this means, mostly.

Also, I have to remember to do about six billion things. So far I've reserved the rental car (our car being unreliable), reserved a space for the dog (we have to board him, though the cats will stay here and be looked in on by a friend), bought presents, and plotted our route.

Kleptocracy (from
Greek: κλεπτοκρατία, klépto- thieves + -kratos rule, literally
"rule by thieves") is a government with corrupt rulers
(kleptocrats) that use their power to exploit the people and natural resources
of their own territory in order to extend their personal wealth and political
power. Typically this system involves the embezzlement of state funds at the
expense of the wider population, sometimes without even the pretense of honest
service...

(By the way, if you don't read Things You Wouldn't Know If We Didn't Blog Intermittently, you're missing a real joy!)

Monday, December 05, 2016

I saw the surgeon for a follow-up today. He says I'm doing well. He says probably one day I'll be able to eat bread again, not to mention meals bigger than a quarter-cup in size.

Meanwhile, the heartburn is entirely gone, and most of the surgical pain as well. Physically, I'm almost entirely recovered -- I don't get tired walking from my car to my office, for instance, and I can lift things again.

Also, I have once again started drinking coffee. What a relief that is.

Saturday, December 03, 2016

Yesterday, I wrote about a hate-group putting up vile posters on our campus.

Other people on campus also wrote about this, several
of them on their FB pages. On several of these pages, people got comments about
how “we” should just ignore these posters. Some said we should ignore them
because we had better things to do; others claimed it was their free speech
right to put up the posters.

Thursday, December 01, 2016

So plant operations has finally sent me my packing boxes. I am packing my books and files, preliminary to the moving guys showing up, next Thursday, to move me to my new office, over in the fancy new building.

Well, newer building.

Meanwhile, I certainly have a lot of books. And more art on the wall than I would have guessed.

I don't think I'm going to have nearly enough boxes, y'all.

ETA: Man, I shoulda wished for money. No sooner did I hit post than the plant operations guys showed up with 15 more boxes!